My LiFePO4 battery abruptly lost charge, on the road yesterday. When I got back it was 20V or so, and the charger won't light up and start charging. Dead?
The long story: I've recently had connection problems, such that everything drops - CA3, throttle etc. Sometimes comes back by itself, or I may need to work the controller start switch (KH6xx Infineon 4 clone.) I fiddled around with it last week, seemed to be working but of course it's an intermittent problem so I can't tell. Yesterday was the first ride after that. A few miles into the ride, I lost connection again, but also voltage - intermittently, it would drop below the cutoff, and then come back up to 48-50V. A couple of those, and then it went to 16-17V and stayed there, and of course was no longer available to drive the motor. But the controller was still on, at least some of the time, and CA3 was reporting 16V, which is not how I remember low voltage cutoff when I've hit it in the past. No regenerative braking, and it didn't feel like I was getting any core resistance while pedaling.
I would expect this battery to last a lot longer. Supposedly 85% after 1000 cycles, and I haven't been counting but I doubt I'm a 10th of the way there. Apparently there's something catastrophic in the wires, but it looks like discharging ca. 6 Ah in a few seconds, which seems like would have more visible consequences.
The long story: I've recently had connection problems, such that everything drops - CA3, throttle etc. Sometimes comes back by itself, or I may need to work the controller start switch (KH6xx Infineon 4 clone.) I fiddled around with it last week, seemed to be working but of course it's an intermittent problem so I can't tell. Yesterday was the first ride after that. A few miles into the ride, I lost connection again, but also voltage - intermittently, it would drop below the cutoff, and then come back up to 48-50V. A couple of those, and then it went to 16-17V and stayed there, and of course was no longer available to drive the motor. But the controller was still on, at least some of the time, and CA3 was reporting 16V, which is not how I remember low voltage cutoff when I've hit it in the past. No regenerative braking, and it didn't feel like I was getting any core resistance while pedaling.
I would expect this battery to last a lot longer. Supposedly 85% after 1000 cycles, and I haven't been counting but I doubt I'm a 10th of the way there. Apparently there's something catastrophic in the wires, but it looks like discharging ca. 6 Ah in a few seconds, which seems like would have more visible consequences.